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COLLECTIONS
Commentaries,
Word Studies, Devotionals, Sermons, Illustrations
Old and New Testament. |
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Sermons
by C H Spurgeon
On Hosea |
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Hosea 1:7 The LORD's Own Salvation
NO. 2057
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, DECEMBER 16TH, 1888
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 2ND, 1888.
“But I will have mercy upon the house of
Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by
bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”-Hosea 1:7.
GOD is very considerate towards the
messengers by whom he delivers his word to men. They are bound to deliver
his word faithfully, whatever the tidings may be. Sometimes the burden of
the Lord is very heavy. The prophets have to denounce woe upon woe, with
terrible monotony of threatening; and then it is that God hastens to relieve
them by giving them a gracious word, so that they may refresh their hearts,
and not be altogether crushed beneath their load. We have an instance here
of the Lord’s care for his heralds. Hosea was bound to say, in the name of
the Lord, “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will
utterly take them away”; but when he had said that, with heavy heart and
tearful eye, he was allowed to add, “But I will have mercy upon the house
of Judah.” The Lord will not let our spirit fail beneath a burden which is
all of grief; but he will grant us the high privilege of proclaiming grace,
as well as publishing judgment. Dear brethren in Christ, if you have to
preach God’s word, preach it faithfully, and abate no syllable of its stern
threatenings. Woe unto him who is afraid to preach the terrors of the Lord!
Woe unto the man who refuses to put his hand into the bitter box, and take
out the wormwood and gall which make such salutary medicine for the souls of
men! We must at times speak lightning, and prove ourselves sons of thunder.
We must bring on the storm and tempest in the heart of man, if fair
summertide discoursing will not touch them. For the most of men there is no
going to heaven except by Weeping Cross; and we must drive them that way
with God’s thundering sentences of judgment. Let us lead them by the path of
sorrow to the Man of sorrows, sorrowing ourselves because it is so hard to
bring them to a godly sorrow. It is at our soul’s peril that we allow a
warning to lie silent. “If the watchman warn them not, they shall perish;
but their blood will I require at the watchman’s hands.” Let us think of
that, and give ourselves up to our Master’s work, even when it is heaviest,
cheered by the fact that we have to speak of such glorious truths, such
precious promises, such a gracious Christ, such a free salvation, such full
pardon for the very chief of sinners, such abundant help for those that have
no strength, such fatherly compassion to those that are out of the way. Our
themes of joy by far outweigh our topics of grief, and we find the Lord’s
service a happy one.
The connection of our text suggests
the thought that there is a limit to the long-suffering of God. He bade
Hosea say, “I will no more have mercy upon Israel.” He had borne with that
guilty people very long, and overlooked their daring crimes; but he would do
so no longer: he would give them over to the enemy, who would carry them
quite away, so that Israel as a distinct monarchy should cease to be. O my
hearers, God is very gracious, but his Spirit shall not always strive with
you. A little more sin, and you may be over the boundary, and God may give
you up. Stay, I pray you! Do not further provoke. Repent, and turn unto the
Lord with full purpose of heart.
Having made that observation, I would
make another, namely, that the Lord makes distinctions among guilty men
according to the sovereignty of his grace. “I will no more have mercy upon
the house of Israel; but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” Had
not Judah sinned too? Might not the Lord have given up Judah also! Indeed he
might justly have done so, but he delighteth in mercy. Many sin, and
righteously bring upon themselves the punishment due to sin: they believe
not in Christ, and die in their sins. But God has mercy, according to the
greatness of his heart, upon multitudes who could not be saved on any other
footing but that of undeserved mercy. Claiming his royal right he says, “I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” The prerogative of mercy is
vested in the sovereignty of God: that prerogative he exercises. He gives
where he pleases, and he has a right to do so, since none have any claim
upon him. We are all under his rule, and by that rule we are under
condemnation; and if he should leave us there, it would be strictly just;
but if any be saved it is an act of pure, undeserved grace, for which he is
to have all the praise.
Note, too, that even in the darkest
times, when whole nations go astray from him, he still reserves unto himself
a people. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will
have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them.” God will have a
people even when those who are called his people prove unworthy of the name.
There never was a night so dark but that God had a star shining through its
blackness. There never was a desert so drear but God could lead a people
through it, and make the wilderness rejoice. There never shall be a time in
which Christ will not have a remnant according to the election of grace, who
will maintain his truth and the honor of his name. Let us be comforted by
this, and look for brighter and better times, however dark the days may seem
to be just now. God will save his own, and by his own will keep his glory
bright among men.
But now the text brings us to consider
this fact, that God will save his own people in his own way. He tells us
positively how he will save the house of Judah, and negatively how he will
not save them. “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save
them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor
by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” God displays his sovereignty not
only in the persons saved, but in the ways whereby that salvation is wrought
out.
The point which we shall consider is
God’s way of saving his people, as instanced in the text; and we remark,
first, that oftentimes God puts visible means aside in dealing with his
people: “Not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen.” Secondly, he has good reasons for doing this: he acts with
infinite wisdom. Thirdly, there is a gospel in this, a gospel which has
special relation to us. Oh, for a blessing from the Spirit of the Lord!
I. First, then, God Is Pleased Very Often, In Working Salvation, To Put
Means Aside.
He said of Israel, “I will break the
bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” He thus struck out of the hands of
his people their only defense; they had trusted in their bow, and the Lord
destroyed it.
First, the Lord does this in the work
of salvation by grace. Salvation is of the Lord alone. Salvation is not of
human merit, for there is no such thing. Plenty of demerit you can find
anywhere and everywhere, but of merit there is none. “When we have done
all, we are unprofitable servants: we have done no more than it was our duty
to have done.” But we have not done all. Alas! on the contrary, we have
done those things which we ought not to have done; and we have left undone
the things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us. In
ourselves we have neither health, help, nor hope. We are not, we cannot be,
saved by our works. We dismiss the idea with an honest indignation, each one
of us for himself. Neither are we saved by any good dispositions which lie
dormant and latent within us, for there are no such things. There is none
good, no not one. The heart is, in every case, deceitful, and desperately
wicked. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. If our
salvation depended upon our hearts going after God of themselves, and the
motions of our nature ascending towards the Most High of themselves, it
would be a hopeless case. But divine grace waiteth not for man, neither
tarrieth for the sons of men. When we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in
trespasses and in sins.” The first movement is from God to us, not from us
to God. As soon expect the darkness to create the day as expect the sinner
to turn his own heart to the Lord. We are saved by the Lord’s grace, not by
our works; nor by our feelings, nor by our desires, nor even by our sense of
need. I believe it is one object of God’s infinite wisdom in each individual
case to make this doctrine clear to the understanding and the heart.
Certainly it is one object of every faithful ministry. We preach down the
creature, and preach up the Savior. Yet, preach as we may,
self-righteousness is so natural to man, self-trust is so congenial to our
proud imbecility, that we cannot get it out of men till the Holy Spirit
comes. Every man his own Savior is the kind of doctrine which is popular;
but to set aside our own doings is to offend many. I see before me a picture
which was once before the mind of Isaiah. Our nature seems like a
rainbow-coloured field of grass in the early days of summer. The golden
kingcups are intermingled with flowers of every hue. What a luxuriant
garden! Wait a moment! A wind comes-a hot sirocco burns its deadly way.
“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.” So have we seen men glorious
in their own self-righteousness, boastful of their moral purity and we have
half thought, surely there is something in all this! We walk over the same
field after the withering work of the Holy Ghost has been there, and men
have been convinced of sin, and we see nothing but disappointment, and hear
nothing but confession of failure. We see no flowers, but dead, withered
grass. How soon has the glory departed! The comeliness of the field is
passed away as in the twinkling of an eye!
You cannot have forgotten, some of
you, when this terrible self-withering happened to you. When God’s rebukes
corrected you, your beauty passed away as the moth. Before I was instructed
as to myself I thought myself as good a fellow as could be found within
fifty miles; but when the Spirit of God had revealed me to myself, I thought
myself the basest creature within five hundred miles; or, for the matter of
that, even outside or inside of hell itself. You may, perhaps, have seen a
picture drawn by a cunning artist. It represents a lady, very fair and
beautiful to look upon; but the picture is so contrived that you discover
underneath it the form of death. That which appeared outwardly so lovely is
only a veiled skeleton. Just that kind of change the Spirit of God makes
upon our moral beauty: he turns it into corruption by making us see what we
really are. The bones of the skeleton of depraved nature stand out through
the proud flesh of our self-righteous pride. Then we cry to God for mercy.
Then we give up all idea of saving ourselves. Neither bow, nor sword, nor
horse, nor horsemen, are any longer our confidence. The weapons of our
self-help are looked upon by us as weapons of rebellion-and they really are
so; and we throw them away, and will have nothing further to do with them.
The man upon whom there is found a bad coin is very earnest in declaring
that it is none of his, somebody must have slipped it into his pocket. He
will not own it. A little while ago he thought to himself, “What a splendid
imitation it is! How well I have cheated the Queen!” Self-righteousness is
nothing but a piece of counterfeit coin; and when all goes well with us, we
say, “How well I have done it! How splendid is my righteousness!” But when
the Spirit of God arrests us, then we are anxious to get rid of the very
thing wherein we gloried. What was our righteousness we reckon to be as
filthy rags-and we reckon according to truth. Thus God saves us, not by bow,
nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but by his
grace, which comes to us freely when Jesus is made of God unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
It is so in the actual salvation of men, and it is often so in their calling
to this salvation. Was any man ever converted in the way in which he
expected to be? I hardly think so. I know what you thought would happen; at
least I know what many expect. They look for an interesting incident. They
suppose, perhaps, that they will have a very wonderful dream; or that, going
to hear a minister, there will be something very striking in the sermon
which will alarm or depress them, so that they will be tempted to commit
suicide, or do some other outrageous thing. Possibly, on the other hand,
they half expect that there will happen a sudden death in the family, or
sickness upon many, and that so they will be impressed; or, possibly, like
Martin Luther with his friend Alexis, they may be walking out in a
thunder-storm, and Alexis will be killed, and they will be aroused in that
way. I, myself, always looked for something very remarkable, but it did not
come to me. And yet something happened which was more remarkable than the
most remarkable thing would have been: I simply heard the gospel command,
“Look unto me, and be ye saved.” I looked and I lived; and that is all the
story I have to tell you. Dear hearer, that is all the story, very likely,
you will ever have to tell. You have come in here to-night, and perhaps you
have even desired that something very wonderful may take place. Nothing of
the sort may happen, and yet the infinite mercy of God may visit your heart
and sweetly melt it. Or ever you are aware, you may say to yourself-
“I do believe, I will
believe, That Jesus died for me”;
and, on a sudden, that change will
come over you of which you have so often heard-by no means the physical
change which you have looked for, the extravagant delirium of sorrow
struggling with delight. You will simply drop into the arms of Christ, and
rest in his great sacrifice, and find peace. That will be all. You will not
be saved by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by
horsemen, but by a simple trust in the Lord alone. What more do you want?
What more can you hope to receive?
I feel very grateful to God whenever a
person attributes his conversion to me. I feel both honored and humbled. But
if you are brought to the Lord Jesus, and no word of mine shall be used, but
only that still small voice which speaks in solemn silence to the heart, I
shall be equally pleased, so long as you are saved. If hungry souls receive
the bread of heaven, I will not fret because they took it from some other
hand than mine, Oh, that even now the Lord himself might come like the dew
which falls in its own special way, and may he refresh your hearts unto
eternal life, and fulfill this word: “I will save them by the Lord their
God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses,
nor by horsemen.”
In the next place, the same thing is
true with regard to the progress of religion, and the work of revivals. Let
every man work as he feels called to do, provided he follows the rules of
his Lord; but we have seen revivals of which it was said at the first, “We
will get up a revival.” Revivals can be got up, but are they worth the
trouble? What has been the end of them all? A few years after, the result,
where is it? I hear an echo say, “Where is it?” I cannot tell you what has
become of it; in many cases I fear that the disappointed church has become
more hard to stir than it was before. Brethren, I hopefully believe that
there will soon come a deep, widespread, lasting revival of religion, and it
may be it will come just as it used to in apostolic times. How did they act
in Jerusalem? What did they do throughout Asia Minor? What was the apostles’
plan? I cannot find, for the life of me, that they did anything else but
preach the gospel, while at the same time they went from house to house, and
held meetings for prayer; and thus the kingdom of Christ came. They did not
work up a revival, but they prayed it down. They simply waited upon the Lord
in supplication and service. They might have tried other plans had they been
so unwise as to think of them. They would never have tolerated the dodges of
the present period, the adaptations of the gospel, and the degrading of it,
by secular lectures, entertainments, and so forth. They never dreamed of
keeping abreast of the times with liberal philosophical teaching; but I
recollect that Paul was so resolutely ignorant as to say, “I determined not
to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Standing
all together the chosen preachers of the first days could aver- “We preach
Christ crucified.” They could all say that, and say it emphatically. All
the men of the college of the apostles stuck to that theme; and see the
effect!
“Nations, the learned and the rude,
Were by these heavenly arms subdued, While Satan raging at his loss,
Abhorred the doctrine of the cross.”
I wish all the churches would try this
old way again, for it seems to me that the world will never be subdued to
Christ by the wooden sword of reason, but only by the true Jerusalem blade
of a gospel revealed from heaven. Until we take up such methods as our Lord
has ordained, and make our sole confidence to be in the Lord our God, who
“will not save by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen,” we shall never see great results. Grand preaching, fine
preaching, eloquent preaching! Yes; but the apostle was afraid of it, lest
the faith of his converts should stand in the wisdom of men. Though he could
have spoken with the tongue of an orator, he did not use the wisdom of
words, lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect.
“But, surely,” cries one, “we must
have some advancement in theology. We ought to know more than our old
fathers did.” This is the pride of our hearts. Would you advance beyond the
apostles? Into what can you advance but into the ditch of error? They did
not crave for an advance in the apostolic times; but they were satisfied to
speak over again “all the words of this life.” They remained true to the
“faith once for all delivered to the saints,” and they found salvation in
this primitive revelation. Why should we go gadding elsewhere? Depend upon
it God will not save men by advanced thought, nor by eloquent discoursings,
nor by literary beauties: he “will save them by the Lord their God, and
will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen.”
I believe that the same great truth
will be made apparent as to the establishment of the truth of God in this
land. How my soul has been burdened with the many that have turned aside,
and the few that remain faithful to the covenant God of Israel! These last
are not so very few as some would make them out to be, but yet they are
sadly scant in number. God has reserved unto himself seven thousand that
have not bowed their knee to Baal, Oh, that there were a thousand times as
many! But we have striven with all our might to bear our outspoken testimony
for the old faith, and we have hopefully thought, that many would rally to
the cry; but it is not so, nor, perhaps, is it God’s mind that it should be.
Men of eminence have held their tongues, and brethren once ardent for the
gospel have practically gone over to the enemy. I am sure that the Lord will
confound the adversary, and bring forth his truth as the noonday; but it may
not be as we would suggest. He has his own way; let us watch for him to make
bare his arm. Perhaps those who are faithful must stand alone, must bear
their witness in solitary places, and be the objects of general derision.
Perhaps for many a year the heavenly fire will only smoulder amidst the
ashes. But it is all right; truth shall hold the crown of the causeway yet,
and Christ’s own word shall lift its head from the waves that have washed
over it, and be the fairer for the washing; for the truth hath God’s might
with it, and it must prevail. He “will save them by the Lord their God, and
will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by
horsemen.” We must be content to subside; to be nothing; to be never heard
of; to die. So be it if the truth shall live. This will be better than if we
formed a numerous band, and carried everything by majorities, and set up a
strong party, and won the day: for then man might be great, and God be
forgotten, but now he shall be all in all. When you have seen how I fail,
and those that are with me, and how plans and efforts are futile, you will
all the more clearly see what the Lord can do.
Dear friends, I would make one other
application of these words, and I trust it may be profitable to you. The
text has a voice to God’s people in the day of trouble. I may be addressing
godly people who are in most terrible distress. You have faith in God that
he will bring you out of your affliction. Maintain that faith; and if for a
long time no deliverance should come, still maintain it. Perhaps you have
hopes from a certain quarter. Those hopes may come to nothing: that cistern
will leak. You have another friend to whom you can apply. Yes, you can
apply; that is all that will happen, for that tank also holds no water. When
you have tried all the cisterns, be wise enough to recollect the fountain.
It may be that there will come a day when every door will be fast closed,
and you will see no way of relief whatever; but bethink you that then there
will remain the one way, which you should have followed at the first. In
such an hour let my text speak with you: “He will save them by the Lord
their God, and he will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by
horses, nor by horsemen.” What a glorious vision is that of Jehovah alone
with his own right hand getting to himself the victory! When Israel came out
of Egypt, what armies vanquished Pharaoh? Who fought on Israel’s side to
bring them out of Egypt? Nobody. Then there was no human victor to extol, no
human warrior to praise; but clear and plain the hymn rang out- “Sing unto
the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” If there had been an ally with
God the glory might have been divided; but as it was, the Lord alone was
exalted in that day. When Israel fought with Amalek it is evident that the
battle never depended upon their fighting, for-
“While Moses stood with arms spread
wide, Success was found on Israel’s side; But when through weariness they
failed, That moment Amalek prevailed!”
so that the real fighting was done by
those uplifted hands that brought down the divine success, and made Joshua
mighty in the battle. When Israel crossed the Jordan, and came into the
promised land to fight the Canaanites, the very first conquest was that of
Jericho. Did they bring battering-rams to the walls? Did they gradually
throw down the structure with their axes and picks? Oh, no! they compassed
the city seven days, and God made the walls to fall when the people gave a
shout. In the memorable deliverances of God’s people, God has said to the
second cause, “Stand back; let my glory come to the front.” The bow, the
sword, the battle, the horses, and the horsemen, he has sent them all about
their business; and then the Lord their God has led the van, and his enemies
have been scattered like the dust of the threshing-floor. When he takes up
the quarrel of his covenant he makes short work of it, for “the Lord is a
man of war; Jehovah is his name;” and when he lays bare his arm to defend
the cause of his people, he wants no helpers. Now can you lean on the Lord?
Can you grasp the Invisible? Can you lean alone on God, and forego all
helpers? Can you grasp his bared arm, and let all things else go? O man of
God, if thou canst, thou shalt glorify God, and thou shalt surely be
delivered! If thou must have thy bow and thy sword, or else give up hope,
then the battle rests with thyself. How canst thou plead the promise of God?
But when thou puttest the bow aside, and the sword is hung on the wall, then
canst thou go to him who is better to thee than bow and sword, and rest in
him, and he will work gloriously, so that his own name shall be magnified,
and thou shalt be blessed. I pray the Holy Spirit to apply that truth to any
heart here that is heavy by reason of sore conflict at this time. Oh, for
grace to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him, for in his own time
and way he will work, and none shall hinder him.
So much upon our first point, that oftentimes God puts the means aside in
dealing with his people.
II. But now, secondly, God has Good Reasons For This.
I shall very briefly touch upon this
theme. The Lord is full of wisdom, and his doings are ever prudent. He
always has good reasons for everything, but one of the things we should
never do is, to ask his reasons. It is an unreasonable thing to ask God to
give reasons for what he does. His answer to arrogant questioners is- “ May
I not do as I will with my own?” Oh for grace to be silent where God is
silent! Is he not God, and we worms of the dust? Who shall presume to ask
him why or what he does? Better far to say, “It is the Lord, let him do
what seemeth him good.” If he never gave us a reason for what he did, we
ought to be well content to leave all with him, knowing that he must do that
which is best and wisest.
But, so far as in humility we may dare
to look, we have looked, and we believe that the Lord’s ways are intended,
first, to prevent all boasting. How prone we are to self-esteem! How
wickedly we rob God to honor ourselves! If God uses us-if God uses any sort
of means-yet there is no credit to the means which he uses, but to himself
only. I read the other day of a certain writer who says, “I wrote the four
hundred pages of this book with one pen.” Where is that pen? Does anybody
want it? If it were advertised as an exhibition, I should not go to see it.
I care a deal more for the hand that wrote, and for what was written, than
for the pen with which it was written. A common goose-quill it was in the
case referred to, and no more. Ah, how plainly can we see where the quill
came from! God uses men for a certain purpose, as we use a hammer, or a saw,
or a gimlet. Suppose that when we had done with such tools, and put them
back into the box, they all began to cry, “See what we have done! What a
sharp saw I was! What a heavy hammer I was! Did I not hit the nail on the
head?” Such boastings would be foolishness. Shall the axe boast itself
against him that heweth therewith? We do not judge that the instrument ought
to take credit to itself; but it does so in our case whenever it can, and
this is a great injury to us. Some of us might have enjoyed a much larger
blessing, if we had not grown top-heavy with the blessing we already
enjoyed. God saved a soul or two by you, my dear friend, and you began to
rub your hands, and think that you were something better than an angel. You
were running away with God’s glory, and thus ending your own influence.
Often this is the cause of the drying up of hopeful usefulness. The
instrument began to exalt itself, and so the Lord put up the bow, the sword,
the horses, and the horsemen, and then all men saw what powerless things
these were. Oh, that the Lord may never feel compelled to leave you and me
to ourselves! Oh, that he may deign to honor us by using us to his glory. I
had far rather die than stand a withered tree in the vineyard of the Lord,
and yet, what better should. I be if he withdrew the dew of his grace from
me?
Next, he does this to take us off from
all reliance upon second causes and outward means. You people of God, the
process of weaning is, with you, full often a long and tedious one; but if
ever it is accomplished, your faith will rejoice, even as Abraham made a
great feast at Isaac’s weaning.
My dear hearers, some of you are not
saved yet, and I will tell you what happens with many of you. You come here
on Sabbath days, and, to Monday prayer-meetings, and Thursday services, and
I am glad to see you. You also read your Bibles; I am glad of that. You say
a thing you call a prayer: I do not know whether I am glad about that. But I
will tell you what you are doing. You are making yourselves quite
comfortable, as if, by some singular process, salvation would insensibly
penetrate you by your being found in good company, hearing the Word, and so
on. Let me remind you that these things were never prescribed as the way of
salvation. I do not want you to run away from hearing the Word, or from the
use of the means; but I do want to assure you that, if you trust in these
means, you will be disappointed in the result. These are mere pitchers, but
they will not quench your thirst if there is no water in them. Look to God,
not to your minister. Get to Jesus himself rather than to the sacred Book.
Remember how the Savior puts it-for this is not a wrested reading- “Ye
search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: but ye
will not come to me that ye might have life.” Pass beyond the Scriptures to
the Christ whom the Scriptures reveal. Do not stay in the porch of the Word,
but enter the house of the truth itself, which is Christ Jesus. It is not
singing hymns and saying prayers; it is getting to the Lord in praise and
really coming to Christ in prayer. I wish you not to stay away from any of
the services; I wish you to be where the means may be blessed to you; but
the means of themselves cannot save you. There is nothing in preaching-
there is nothing in public service that can mechanically bring salvation to
you; and do not expect it. “Ye must be born again!” You must distinctly go
to Christ for yourselves, for the Lord saves men by the Lord Jesus Christ,
and he will not save them by books, and prayer-meetings, and sermons any
more than he would save Judah by the bow, the sword, the battle, the horses,
and the horsemen. The Lord set aside horse and horsemen to bring the people
to himself; and often he lays people up so that they cannot get out to hear
the minister, or he drafts them away to some portion of the country where
they get no sermon, that then they may go to the God of all true sermons,
and may find salvation in Jesus Christ himself.
Again, beloved, the Lord blesses his
people himself that he may endear himself to them. He reveals himself to
them apart from other things, that they may see him and know what he can do.
You do not know to the full what God can do so long as he keeps within the
bounds of the ordinary means, or you feel that you are well provided for by
ordinary methods. You are apt to forget that God provides for you, because
your quarterly allowance is received so regularly. Now, suppose that your
business fails. Ah! then God must provide for you: then you will see what
God is doing. Suppose that, instead of being in one place, you should be
kicked about like a football, and still the Lord should give you rest in
himself: then you will see what he can do. When we are in fine feather, and
everybody is kind to us, we hardly know the lovingkindness of the Lord, it
is so smothered up by secondary agencies. When we get quite alone, and
nobody is kind to us, and we approach to the Lord in solitary trust, and
prove his power to comfort us, then we know more of what he is in himself to
his people. The night reveals the stars, and sorrow and loneliness manifest
the Lord’s presence. But, beloved, God does this to endear himself to us,
that seeing more of him we may love him more, and may say to ourselves,
“What a gracious God he is to take notice of me, to interpose for me, to
come and, by his own mighty power, do for me what the ordinary ways and
means fail to do!” In this way also the Lord often gives a double
blessing-a blessing in the gift, and a blessing in the way of giving.
Now look at Hezekiah’s case. Supposing
Hezekiah had gone out to fight Sennacherib, and had defeated him, a certain
number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would have been killed in the battle;
but when the Lord delivered Hezekiah without a battle, then there were no
funerals in Jerusalem. Nobody was wounded; nobody was slain. So frequently
God not only blesses us by the favor given, but by the way in which the gift
is sent: he saves us from pains which any other method would have involved.
The Lord often spares us the humiliation of being dependent upon a person
who would have made his patronage bitter to us. If we had received the
blessing through some great one, he might have crowed over us all the rest
of his life. I like that bit in Abraham’s life when the king of Sodom
offered him the property which he had captured. Abraham had a right to it,
for he had taken it in war; but he said, “I will not take from a thread to
a shoe-latchet, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” No, no;
the servant of the Lord would not have a king talk as if he had been the
maker of the Lord’s own servant. God himself will so help you, so bless you,
so carry you through, that you shall not have to take off your hat to any
king of Sodom, neither shall he be able to go up and down the city and say,
“I have made Abram rich.” God will put the king of Sodom away with the
horses and the horsemen, and double the mercy to you by handing it out with
his own hand after his own way.
I think that the Lord does this also
to encourage you in all future troubles: he has rescued you in a way beyond
means, without means, and even against means, and therefore you cannot be in
a condition from which he will be unable to rescue you. If you should come
to be more friendless and more feeble than you now are-what then? Are your
resources within yourself or dependent upon friends? If so, you are in an
evil case. But if all your supplies are in the Lord, you are no worse off
than you used to be. When the Lord strips you bare of your own garments,
then you can go to his wardrobe and put on the raiment which he has
provided. You cannot wear God’s clothes while you glory that you are wearing
your own. When want has swept your table, then all the bread on it will come
from your God. When the Lord has brought you down to the bare rock, then you
can go no lower, and there is a chance to build a house which will stand
against flood and wind. Be reliant upon him who can work by means, but can
equally well work without means whenever it seemeth good in his sight! In
such confidence you will find security against all ill weathers. The Lord
changes not, and therefore you shall not be consumed.
III. My time is done, or else I was going to say, thirdly, There Is A
Gospel In This Text for those here present.
I can only hint at this in a few
words.
The first gospel is that salvation is
possible in every case. Notice, “I will save them.” What can stand against
a divine “I will”? With God nothing is impossible. If there be nothing to
help him, what does it matter? He does not need help. He expressly abjures
the aid of a creature when he says, “I will not save them by bow, nor by
sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” My dear hearer, whoever
you may be, there is hope in your case: if God saves, then you can be saved.
If you had to save yourself, you would not be saved; but as there is nothing
wanted of you, but God worketh salvation with his own right hand, your case
is hopeful. How clear is this! And how bright with comfort!
Next, salvation is to be sought of God
alone. Do not go wandering about to the second cause. Go straight to the
Lord himself, and go at once. Straightforward is the best running in the
world. Go straightforward to your God, your Savior. Let there be no waiting
for tears, feelings, repentance, sanctification, or anything else; but arise
at once, and go to your God, and for Christ’s sake plead with him to have
mercy upon you at this moment. As salvation does not necessarily come
through the outward means, if I address any here who have neglected the
outward means, let them come away to God at once, though they have neglected
his courts, profaned his day, and despised his ministers. You came in here
with no idea of worshipping God, but only just to see the place, and what
the preacher is like. Never mind, look to the Lord Jesus Christ straight
away! With these eyes that are so blinded, look! If you cannot see, it may
be that in your obedient attempt to look, the Lord will give you sight. He
does not command you to see, but he does command you to look to him and be
saved: so that, if you turn your eyes towards Jesus, though they be
sightless eyeballs, he will make them see. If you will trust in Christ you
may cast your guilty soul on him at this moment. Why should you not do so?
Then for you the rain will be over and gone, and you will see the bright
light in the clouds. Instead of the dark and dismal winter of doubt, you
shall have a summer-time of hope and comfort. These dreary weeks of cold
despair shall give place to a season in which heaven and earth shall blend
in your experience in a joy unspeakable. The Lord grant it, for Jesus
Christ’s sake! Amen.
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Hosea 2:5-7 The Backslider's Way Hedged Up
NO. 590 -
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 1864,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
She said, I will go after my lovers, that
give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall,
that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers,
but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find
them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then
was it better with me than now.”-Hosea 2:5-7.
Great and grievous was the apostacy of the seed of Abraham from the Lord
their God. They had been chosen by special grace from among all people, and
had the high honor to receive the oracles of God; yet they were bent on
backsliding from God, and were unfaithful to the Most High, The gods of the
surrounding heathen were constantly a snare unto them, and they forsook the
only living and true God to prostrate themselves before blocks of wood and
stone. Though chastened a thousand times they learned nothing by the rod;
and though as frequently forgiven and visited with mercy, the holy bonds of
gratitude did not bind them to their God. As an abandoned woman leaves a
kind and tender husband for the base love of the vilest of the vile, even so
both Israel and Judah played the harlot towards the Lord who had espoused
them in infinite love. Yet God has not even now written a bill of
divorcement, or cast away the people whom he did foreknow. Through eighteen
hundred years the sons of Israel have had to wander to and fro without a
settled dwelling-place, yet God hath not utterly given them up or broken his
covenant with them; for the day shall come when Israel shall return, when
again she shall be called Hephzi-bah, and her land Beulah. Come, long
expected day! Appear, thou glorious King of the Jews! and thou, O Judah,
return from thy captivity, shake thyself from the dust, put on thy beautiful
garments, and salute the Lord, thine Ishi, thy tender, loving husband.
Beloved brethren and sisters, the apostacy of the children of Israel has
been recorded for our learning; for, as they were prone to wander, so are
we: and the methods by which God brought them back of old are precisely
those which he uses with his erring children at the present day. Instead of
wondering at Israel’s wickedness, let us examine ourselves, and repent for
our own sins; and while we see the hand of God upon them, let us learn to
admire those methods of unerring wisdom by which divine love preserves the
ransomed ones from going down into the pit.
In considering our text, my aim will be to be used as the Holy Spirit’s
instrument to arouse, instruct, and restore backsliders. Such wanderers may
be present now. Their first love they have lost, and their zeal is quenched.
There may be some here who have gone further still, and have forsaken the
Church of God altogether, having given up their profession and all
attendance upon divine worship. O that the voice of Israel’s God may be
heard in their hearts this morning, crying, “If a man put away his wife,
and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her
again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the
harlot with many lovers ; yet return again to me, saith the Lord.”
I. We commence the consideration of the passage before us with the remark,
that While Sinful Men Are In Prosperity They Pervert The Mercies Of God To
Their Own Injury, making them instruments of sin and weapons of warfare
against God.
While the children of Israel enjoyed an abundance of temporal comforts they
ascribed all these blessings to their false gods. Hear the wicked and
treacherous words- “I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my
water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” Oh! base ingratitude to
their bounteous Jehovah! Infamous ascription of his glory to graven images!
Prosperous sinners make three great mistakes. At the outset they give their
temporal mercies the first place in their hearts. Because their business
prospers, they do not consider that their soul is perishing; because there
is enough on the table for themselves and for their children, they forget
that their soul is famished for lack of heaven’s bread. They put the shadows
of time before the realities of eternity. They say, “ We must live:” but
they forget that they must die. So long as the current glides smoothly and
the gentle flow of the river of their joy is undisturbed, they forget the
cataract red with the blood of souls adown whose tremendous steeps those
treacherous waters will soon hurry them. Is it not a gross mistake to attach
so much importance to this poor body of clay, and forget the priceless jewel
of the immortal soul? Why think so much of a world in which we only tarry
for a few evil years, and neglect the world where we must dwell for ever?
Such folly is most shameful in one who was once a professed Christian,
because he knew, or professed to know, somewhat of the superiority of the
eternal over the temporal; of the vanity of things earthly and the glory of
things heavenly. Yet because things go well with him-because his wife is in
health, his children blooming, his house well furnished, his property
increasing, he saith, “Soul, take thine ease,” and disturbs not himself
though heaven is black with lowering tempest, and the light of God’s
countenance is hidden from him. The loss of God’s presence the man thinks to
be a trifle, because he is succeeding in the world; as though a man should
count it nothing to lose his life if be may but keep his raiment whole to be
buried in. O fools, thus to put the last things first, and the first things
last.
One error leads to another, and hence such people hold their temporal things
upon a wrong tenure. Do observe how many times the word “my” is found in
the text. “Give me my bread and my water, and my wool and my flax, mine oil
and my drink.” Why, they were not hers but God’s, for the Lord expressly
claims them all in the ninth verse, and threatens to take them all away.
Backslider, there was a time when thou didst confess thyself to be God’s
steward, when thou saidst, “I am not my own, but bought with a price;” yet
now thou hast so set thy heart upon worldly things, that all thy talk runs
in this fashion my horses, my houses, my lands, my profits, my children, and
an endless list of things which thou thinkest to be altogether thine. Why,
man, they are not thine; they are only lent thee for a season; thou art but
God’s under-bailiff, thou hast possession only as tenant-at-will, or as a
borrower holding a loan. The Lord claims even now the prior right to all
thou hast, and the day shall come when he shall show thee this; for if he
have mercy upon thee-and I pray he may-he may take these from thee one by
one, and make thee cry out in abject wretchedness of soul, “O God, forgive
me, that I made these my gods, and claimed them as mine own.”
Then further, backsliders are apt to ascribe their prosperity and their
mercies to their sins. I have even heard one say, “Ever since I gave up a
profession of religion, I have made more headway in business than I did
before.” Some apostates have boasted, “Since I broke through puritanical
restraint, and went out into worldly company, I have been better in spirits,
and better in purse than ever I was before;” thus they ascribe the mercies
which God has given them to their sins, and wickedly bow down before their
lusts, as Israel did before the golden calf, and cry, “These be thy gods, O
Israel, which brought us up out of the land of Egypt!” Sinner, if you did
but know it, a long-suffering God has given you these things. Even to you
who will perish, he has given many mercies as your portion in this life,
seeing that you have no heritage hereafter. O take heed, lest ye be fattened
upon them as beasts for the slaughter. Unto you, backsliders, he has given
these things to try you, to see how far you will go, to what extravagances
of ingratitude you will descend, and how far you will despise his tender
means. O backslider, is it not marvellous that God has not long ago
stretched you upon a bed of sickness, when you consider how much you have
brought dishonor upon Christ’s name, how you have vexed God’s people, how
you have made the wicked open their mouths against God? Is it not a wonder
that he did not take you away with a stroke, when you first forsook him? And
yet, see-instead of this, he multiplies your mercies. Does he not as good as
say, “Return unto thy rest, for I have dealt bountifully with thee. I am
married unto thee, and therefore I treat thee as a husband treats his
spouse. Although I might well proclaim a divorce against thee, yet since I
have betrothed thee unto me for ever, my goodness and mercy shall not leave
thee even in thy sins.” Herein lies the gross mistake of the
backslider-that he will attribute his present happiness and comfort to his
sins rather than to the forbearance of God. Here are three great errors, and
oh! I fear they are so deadly, that unless God interpose in providence and
in grace, they will be as fatal as the three darts which Joab thrust through
the heart of Absalom as he was dangling by his proud hair in the wood of
Ephraim. I fear that the goodly Babylonish garment, and the talents of
silver, and the wedge of gold, will ruin you as they did Achan of old. These
three falsehoods, like the three daughters of the horseleech, will never be
satisfied until they have utterly destroyed your soul. You will be wrapt in
fine linen and fare sumptuously, and all this shall but ensure you the
torments of the damned. Go to, now, weep and howl for the miseries which
shall come upon you: your riches are corrupted; your garments are
moth-eaten; your gold and silver are cankered, and the rust of them shall be
a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have
forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam,
who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Hear ye the word of the Lord by the
mouth of his servant Peter, tremble at it, and be afraid: “If after they
have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the
latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for
them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known
it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them, But it is
happened unto them according to the proverb, The dog is turned to his own
vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”
II. Let us turn from this gloomy side of our subject, and observe with
gratitude that The Lord Interposes Adversity In Order To Bring Back His
Wandering Children.
Let us consider for a moment the hindrances which a God of love frequently
puts in the way of his elect when they backslide from him. Here we have the
matter opened up to our attention. “Therefore, behold I will hedge up thy
way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.” Here
you see that it is an unexpected hindrance, for it is placed right in the
man’s way- “ I will hedge up thy way “-it was his way, his habit; he had
fallen into it, and he meant to keep on; but suddenly he met with an
unlooked for obstacle. Just as farmers, when a public path runs through
their field and persons begin to wander too much into the grass or corn,
will put up bushes to keep the public to the path; or just as husbandmen to
keep their cattle in their fields, make thick thorn-hedges which the beasts
cannot break through, so God puts a thorn-hedge of troubles right in the way
of his chosen to stop them in their sins. This hedge may be placed in your
way in different shapes, perhaps you will meet with it this day. I see the
hand of God as it touches the elect but erring man; suddenly business grows
slack; customers fall off one by one; bad debts multiply; bankruptcy stares
him in the face, where he had enough to lavish on his pleasures he has not
enough to supply his needs. A mighty famine has arisen in the land of sin
and he begins to be in want. He little expected this. If anybody had told
him when he was so proudly driving that fast-trotting horse along the
streets that he would come to hard work, he would have laughed him to scorn.
He thought he should live a millionaire, but now he seems far more likely to
die a pauper. Or it may be that sudden sickness has fallen upon his once
strong and healthy person. He could drink with the most drunken and no voice
could ring so loud as his in the midnight revelry; but now he is paralyzed,
he has lost the use of half his limbs; or perhaps some internal complaint
has weakened him and made him totter along the road in constant jeopardy of
sudden death. Now the smooth road is rough indeed and the world has lost its
many charms. Ah! sinner, the sound of music is hushed for thee, and the joys
of the flowing bowl are thine no more. Thy foaming tankards, thy wantonness
and chambering are gone, mercy has rent them from thee in love to thy soul.
Possibly the hedge is made of other thorns: perhaps the man’s children
sickened; there are many funerals in the house in quick succession. That
first-born son, the expected heir, the joy of his father’s heart, falls like
a withered flower; his wife is cut off as a lily snapped from its stalk, and
he stands weeping, a widowed husband, a childless man. Any of these ways,
and thousands more which I need not here recount, are God’s methods of
building walls across the way of those whom he ordains to bless. When the
man breaks through one hedge, the Lord of mercy will build another, and
maintains his hedges at such a degree of strength that the bullock which is
most accustomed to the yoke shall not be able to push through. O backslider,
the divine finger can touch thee in the very tenderest part, and though up
to this moment thou hast boasted, “Nobody can make me wretched; nothing
shall ever make me fret,” yet lie can shut you up in such despair that none
can remove the heavy bar. Think of what your brain may yet become -it is
cool and calculating now, and thou canst clearly see that thy fellows are
left behind in the race of competition-but remember how soon an unseen cause
may soften that brain into imbecility, or excite it into incipient insanity!
How soon may that boasted brain become like a burning sea throbbing with
waves of fire! Beware lest such a visitation become the prelude of the wrath
eternal; my prayer for thee is, that more gentle means may bring thee to
repentance; but to that thou wilt never come unless the Lord hedge up thy
way with thorns.
Observe that it was a very disappointing impediment. While the prosperous
sinner was securely pursuing his way he was stopped. “Why,” saith the man,
“if it bad not been for that, I should have made a fortune.” “Why did
death come just when my fair girl looked so lovely in the bloom of opening
womanhood, and when my dear boy had grown so engaging that his company was
my delight?-ah! this is trouble indeed. To meet with misfortune just when I
had built that new house, and held my head so high, and expected to see my
daughters so respectably married-why, this is very disappointing,” and the
man kicks; and though once he professed to be a child of God, yet it is
painfully possible that he is ready to curse God and die. But, if he
knew-oh! if he knew the divine motive, he would thank God for his troubles
on bended knees. You will remember that story of the painter in St. Paul’s.
When on high he painted his picture upon the ceiling, he went backward upon
the stage to look at it, and was so engrossed with his occupation, that he
was just on the edge of the stage and in great danger of being dashed to
pieces by a fall from that dizzy height. A friend saw him, and knowing that
if he called out to him he would be startled, and thus his fall might be
hastened, he took up a brush full of paint and threw it at the picture; the
desired effect was produced, for the painter in great anger rushed forward
to upbraid him, and thus his life was spared. God seeing you painting a fair
scene of life and happiness on earth, suddenly spoils it all, you rush
forward, crying out against him; but oh! what reason have you to thank him
for that disappointment which has disappointed Satan of his prey and saved
your soul!
Moreover, what painful hindrances our heavenly Father often uses. He hedges
the sinner’s path not with rhododendrons and azaleas, not with roses and
laurels, but with thorns. Prickly thorns which curse the soil and tear the
flesh are God’s instrument of restraint. Nothing but a thorn hedge would
have stayed the man: he was so madly set upon his present course that he
would dash through anything else; but God, whose eternal mercy has marked
that man out as a special object of love, uses the most effectual remedies,
and plants a fence of thorns. Are you smarting this morning-so smarting that
you wish you had never been born? Do you feel so much the cuts and lashes of
evil fortune that you would sooner end your existence than continue any
longer as you are? I bless God for this, if you are one of his children, for
it is thus, and thus only, that you will be made to change your ways.
Furthermore, the fence is effectual if the thorn-hedge will not suffice: it
is written, “I will make a wall.” There are some so desperate in sin that
they will break through ordinary restraints; then a wall shall be tried
through which there is no breaking, over which there is no climbing. Ah,
backslider! backslider! perhaps you have already broken through the
thorn-hedge, your trials have not been sanctified. I have known some who
have had enough trials, one would think to have melted a heart of adamant,
and yet they have set their faces like a flint against God, and gone on
worse than ever. “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey him?” said Pharaoh,
when he was vexed with many plagues; and so have you said. God, I trust,
will not destroy you as he did Pharaoh, but he will break, one way or
another, the iron sinew of your proud neck; for when it comes to a wrestle
between God and you, you may be sure of a fall. The Lord never was defeated
yet even by the stoutest adversary, and he will not in your case be
frustrated in his design. If you be really one of his chosen, you shall meet
with an affliction such as perhaps you never heard of in any other man; and
if nought but this will stop you, he will invent some new form of disease,
some fresh method of pain in order to get at your soul. If you cannot be
saved by the gentle wind, he will send the storm; if this suffice not, he
will try the hurricane, and if you will not run into port even then, tornado
shall follow tornado till you are broken to pieces like a wreck, and
compelled to swim to the Rock of Ages for rescue. These are but parts of his
ways, and even his hard things are full of mercy. The tender mercies of the
wicked are cruel, but the cruel things of God are full of tender mercy. He
only uses these methods because nothing else will do, and he would sooner
that you should enter into heaven with every bone broken, than that you
should descend into hell with the full use of your powers.
III. In the third place-you would think that the sinner would now stop, but
instead of it, according to the text, Even Though God Walls Up The Way Of
Sin, Men Will Try To Follow It, But In The Chosen This Resolve Will Be In
Vain.
“She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and
she shall seek them, but shall not find them.” Do you see the man, he has
suffered such loss that he cannot find the means to sin as he used to do;
where he had money to spend to indulge himself, he now finds an empty purse,
but yet he tries to do his worst; lie goes up and down that wall to see if
there be not a hole in it somewhere; he tries to scramble over it where
there is a projecting stone-he climbs half-way up, and falling, cuts his
hands, but he will try again and again. He runs all along that thorn-hedge
and looks and looks again for a gap, and oh! if he could but find one; if he
could but escape from God’s boundaries; if he could but scrape enough money
together to have another debauch; if he could find just enough to play the
gentleman again; but he cannot, he has no means whatever to indulge his sin.
Perhaps the case runs another way: God has taken away from the man all the
pleasure of sin. He cannot be so satisfied as he used to be with his money.
As lie puts it into the till he despises it; and when he sees it
accumulating at his bankers it only brings him care and no content as once
it did. His children turn out one by one a curse to him. In business
everything seems determined to plague him. Whereas at the theater he could
gaze and listen with ecstasy, the whole affair is now tame and dull. Those
wines so full of flavour, have now through his satiety lost their usual
charm. Let him do what he will, the world is all a blank and wretchedness
for him. Like Tiberius he would give a mint of gold to any one who would
invent him a new pleasure or restore the vigor of the old; but no, the
thorn-hedge is too well made, the Great Husbandman has planted it too well;
the sinner would become a spiritual suicide but he cannot, let him desire it
as he may. He is desperately set on destruction as though it were to be
desired. O sinner, how is this-how has the fall spoilt us that we should be
so enamoured of our own destruction? O my God, what a creature is man!
though he knows that sin will be his ruin, yet he hugs it as though it were
his chief mercy, heaps to himself destruction as though it were gold, and
digs for his own ruin as for hid treasure. Oh! if the righteous were half as
intent in seeking after goodness as the wicked are in hunting after sin, how
much more active would they be! If we were half as strongly set upon the
things of God as sinners are set upon their own ways and their own
pleasures, we should have no waverers, no timid, cowardly spirits. Truly
this love of sin is so strange, that if we did not see it in ourselves we
should wonder at it; but Christian, this is in you as much as in the worst
of men; you, too, if it had not been for divine mercy, would have plunged on
from bad to worse. If Omnipotence itself had not seized the reins and turned
us into the way of truth, we should at this moment have been dashing on in
the road of sin-I say if Omnipotence itself had not interposed. It was not
the minister, it was not conscience, it was not merely providence- it was
more than this-Jehovah’s own right arm threw back the horse on its haunches
and cast the rider to the ground, as he did Saul at Damascus, or else we
should have hastened on to our destruction and perished through the hardness
of our hearts. Let us sing unto him whose mighty mercy has rescued us, and
let us pity those whom the restraints of providence cannot bind, who will if
they can leap through stone walls to have their way and their sin. Thus
then, dear friends, we have presented to you the deplorable picture of the
sinner infatuated, perfectly infatuated and drunken with the love of sin and
enmity to God, and mercy itself, so far as we have gone, foiled of its
purpose. The thorn-hedge not enough-the stone wall not enough-what shall
come now?
IV. Our next business is to consider That The Backslider’s Failure Is
Followed By A Blessed Result.
The hunt was very arduous, but the greedy hunter has missed his prey, and
there he sits weary with the chase and ashamed of himself. What comes of it?
Do observe it, for the result is one which I hope you and I know already.
“Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it
was better with me than now.” O Lord! teach some who are here this morning
to pray this prayer.
Observe here is repentance attended with sorrow. The poor creature in this
case feels, deeply feels to the very soul, the wretchedness of her
condition. She is in so bad a plight, that though she had despised her
former state, she now confesses it to be better.
Observe that it is an active repentance. It is not merely “I will return,”
but “I will go and return.” When the grace of God sets a backslider upon
returning, he will stir up all the powers of his soul to seek after God. He
cries, “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the
morning: I say more than they that watch for the morning.” There is much
earnestness in a sinner seeking Christ, but, if possible, there is more in a
backslider returning from the error of his ways; for he has not only the
guilt of sin to mourn over, but the double guilt of having despised the
Savior, of having known the way of righteousness and having turned from it.
Here are two spurs to make him speed on in his course.
Observe, dear friends, that the confession which this poor soul makes of
folly is one which is sustained by the best of reasons. She says, “Then was
it better with me than now.” Let us see whether this is not true with you.
Well, backslider, what have you gained by it after all?
Have you gained anything more comfortable than the light of your Father’s
face. You once could say, “Abba, Father !” you rejoiced to know that God
was at peace with you; you were reconciled to him by the death of his Son.
Now God is angry with you, your fears tell you that he has forgotten to be
gracious. What can make up for this loss?
When God lights a candle, what brightness is in the room; but when God’s
candle is gone, where is the sun, and where the moon? They give no light to
you. Before, when you were in your right senses, you had the privilege of
going to the throne of grace, you could tell your wants before God, and
spread your sorrows there, but you have no throne of grace to go to now.
Why, you scarcely dare pray. As for your friends, you would not like to tell
them your troubles. Poor prodigal, what sorry friends are those who waited
on you in your days of wealth; they sat with their legs under your mahogany,
and drank your wine while you had any-but you know that you would be a fool
to expect any help from them, now that you need it. Your lovers have
forsaken you, and those who once were so kind-where is their love now? Do I
see one among you who has been cast off by her companion in sin and shame!
Ah, woman! Poor wretched woman! hast thou been made to feel that smart so
common to those who sin as thou hast done, cast into the street by him who
first decoyed thee by his fair promises of love? Thy case is but one of
many, and there be thousands who find that the world knows not what
faithfulness means; first sin deludes, deceives, and pretends to love, and
then afterwards it casts off its victims, Ah! you had a Father’s house to go
to, and a Father’s mercy to plead; but you have not it now: it was better
with you then than now. And then, you had God’s promises to fall back upon.
If you had any trouble you opened your Bible, and there was a passage to
cheer you; when you had losses, the cheering words exactly met your case;
but now that Book is full of fire, it flashes lightning upon you as you read
it, there is not a promise there which smiles on you; your fears whisper
that the treasury of God is shut against you. Once you had communion with
Christ Jesus-ah! now I touch a tender string-you did sit at the banqueting
table of Christ; unless you were awfully deceived and a gross hypocrite, you
could say, “He hath kissed me with the kisses of his mouth.” After this,
how couldst thou go to the door of that deceiver Madame Wanton! How is this?
O soul, if thou hast ever known the love of Christ, I am sure thou wilt say,
“It was better with me then than now.” What can the world afford you
comparable to fellowship with Jesus? One hour upon his bosom is worth ten
thousand years in the palaces and courts of the world’s wealth and royalty,
and you know that it is so. There is no room to entertain a comparison for a
moment.
“What peaceful hours you once enjoyed, How sweet their memory still, But
they have left an aching void The world can never fill.”
O that your repentance, fixed upon such reasons as these, may be deep! may
you make a confession of your extreme folly, and now fall down before God
and find mercy!
To close this point, this repentance was acceptable. It is not often that a
husband is willing to take back his wife when she has so grossly sinned, as
the metaphor here implies; and yet observe that God is willing to receive
the sinner, though his sin is even more aggravated. By the mouth of Jeremiah
he speaks these words- “Return unto me, for I am married unto thee.” I do
not know anything which should make the backslider’s heart break like the
doctrine of God’s immutable love to his people. Some say that if we preach
that “whom once he loves he never leaves, but loves them to the end,” it
will be an inducement to man to sin. Well I know man is very vile, and he
can turn even love itself into a reason for sinning, but where there is as
much as even one spark of grace, a man cannot do that. A child does not say,
“I will offend my father because he loves me ;” it is not even in fallen
human nature generally, unless inspired by the devil to find motives for sin
in God’s love, and certainly no backsliding child of God can say “I will
continue in sin that grace may abound.” They who do so show that they are
reprobates and their damnation is just. But the backslider, who is a child
of God at the bottom, will, methinks, feel no cord so strong to hold him
back from sin as this. Backslider, I hope it will also be a golden chain to
draw you to Christ. Jesus meets you, meets you this morning. You were
excommunicated. You were driven out from among God’s people with shame, but
Jesus meets you, and pointing to the wounds which he received in the house
of his friends at your hands, he nevertheless says, “Return unto me, for I
am married unto thee.” It is a relationship which thou hast broken, and it
might legally be broken for ever if he willed it ; but he does not will it,
for he hates to put away. Thou art married to Jesus. Come back to thy first
husband, for he is thy husband still! The fountain which washed thee once
can wash thee again. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall as wool.” The
robe of righteousness which covered thee once can cover thee again ; though
thou hast cast it from thee with scorn, yet still it is thine, and the
Father bids his servants bring forth the best robe and put it on thee. Come
to me ! Thou hast forgotten the Lord, but he has not forgotten thee; thou
lovest sin, but he will change thy will, and set thy heart upon himself, for
he is determined that thou shalt be his for ever. Is not this a soul-melting
doctrine ? If there be so much as a spark of spiritual life in you, methinks
you will say, “Against such love as this I cannot sin; against such tender
mercy I will not rebel; I will return unto my first husband, for then it was
better with me than now.”
I do not know, but I may be speaking very pointedly and personally to some
here-I hope I am. I know that the most of you are not in this condition, and
for this I thank my God. I pray you, however, lift up your hearts in prayer
for those who are, and ask my Master that as this bow is drawn at a venture
he may direct the arrow. There are some such here; I know there are. There
are some here who have come this very morning with no idea that God would
meet with them. You have put the reins upon your neck and you have given
yourselves up. The restraints of morality can scarcely bind you, and yet
once you prayed at the prayer meeting and sat at the sacramental table, and
you put on the Lord Jesus Christ by profession in baptism; but oh! what are
you now? Your life would not bear to be talked of, your conduct has become
so gross and vile, you might have expected to have heard this morning some
word that should have cut you off for ever from hope, but, instead of it,
the silver trumpet sounds to-day with notes of love and pity. Return! return
! — your husband woos you over again-return! for then it was better with you
than now.
V. Not to be longer on the point, let us observe in the fifth place, that
There Is An Awful Contrast To All This.
There are some who prosper in this world until, like a wide-spread tree,
they are cut down and cast into the fire. There are backsliders, who, never
having had the root of the matter in them, go back unto their own ways, to
the land from which they came out, and continue there for ever. 1 beseech
you never trifle with backsliding. I have put God’s free grace in the
boldest manner that I could just now, but oh! let me warn any man who would
pervert that free grace into an excuse for sin; let me warn him against
playing with backsliding. One man may roll down a precipice and may scarcely
be injured, but I would not try it, for I might break my neck. One man took
poison and he was hurried off to the hospital, and by the use of proper
antidotes was spared, but I would not advise you to try it, nay I would beg
you to put it away from you. Chosen vessels of mercy, notwithstanding their
backslidings, are brought back; but ah! remember that nine out of ten of
those who backslide never were God’s people. They go out from us because
they were not of us, and this is the history of their lives, and may be the
history of your life; ah! and may be the history of mine yet:-they joined
the Church; they had been greatly impressed under a sermon; they were young,
they knew little as yet of the trials of life:
being in the Church they walked consistently for years; they kept the faith;
but the Church was cold and they grew cold too; they neglected week-day
services; the closet was forsaken; family prayer was hardly attended to;
then they forsook the sanctuary altogether, but they were still moral and
upright; they began anon to associate with those whom once they avoided;
their business went on well; they had risen from the lowest grade of society
to occupy a middle position; they still prospered; gold accumulated; they
were the successful people; there was a worm at the root of it all it is
true, but nevertheless it looked so fair and seemed so well, the man did not
like to remember that he ever had gone to that little meeting-house; he felt
ashamed that ever he had associated with those whom once he knew to be the
people of God; he went on still accumulating wealth, but one day he was
found dead! Shall I pursue his history? In hell he lifts up his eyes in
torments for ever, with this as the special worm that never could die to
gnaw his conscience, that he did know in his head the way of righteousness,
but had turned away from it in his heart. In letters of fire he sees written
athwart that burning sky, “You Knew Your Duty But You Did It Not; you have
come from the cup of the Lord to the cup of devils; you turned aside from
the people of God to the children of Satan; you deliberately chose the evil
and you forsook the good; you perished not as the ignorant perish, not as
they perished Who were careless from their birth; not as those who were
unvisited by pangs of conscience, or who knew not the Word, but you perished
in the light of the gospel, with the sun of mercy shining upon your
eye-balls; you perished, though you stood as it were on the very doorstep of
heaven; you drifted back to hell in the teeth of a tide of mercy.” This, I
say, may be your case and mine, if we be not really rooted and grounded in
Christ: we may fall by little and little. We may even continue till we die,
to be Church. members, and yet backslide in heart by slow degrees, until we
become rotten through and through, and God casts us on the dunghill. I say
by the special and miraculous mercy of God, his elect will be ingathered,
but take ye heed, sirs, that ye build not on your profession, for profession
is no proof of election. Ye must be born again, and only the man who
continues to the end shall be saved. May we have such perseverance given us,
for his name’s sake.
VI. With this last we conclude-Is Not This Subject A Very Solemn Warning To
The People Of God?
What some do others may do. If one man falls, another may. If one professor
turned out to be a hypocrite, so may another. If one minister reels from the
pinnacle of honor and is dashed upon the rocks beneath, so may another. I
want to make a personal, application of this to myself, and I pray my
brethren in office behind me, venerable though some of them are in years, to
remember that this may be their case. And you, my associates and
fellow-members, many of you united to the Church before I was born, remember
that age and habit are no security against apostasy. There must be the
continual keeping and anointing of the Holy Spirit. I beseech you, and here
I do beseech myself also, let us watch against the beginnings of
backsliding. Let us take care of the little sins, O let us watch against the
little coolnesses of heart. Brethren, no man backslides all at once. Few men
who profess to be saints become outward sinners by one step; it is usually
by little and by little. I pray you do not forsake the assembling of
yourselves together. Wake up from your coldness in private prayer if this
has come over you. If your love to Christ has grown cold stay not in this
state of danger, but pray to the Master to inflame your heart again. If any
ot you have in any respect whatever fallen from your first love; if that old
enthusiasm which was in us as a Church has departed from any of you, pray
God to give it you back. If any of you are not bringing forth such fruit
unto God as you used to do, O be suspicious of yourselves. Carnal security
may be the heaven of fools, but it is the bane of believers.
“Be watchful, be vigilant, dangers may be,
In an hour when all seemeth
securest to thee”
Especially at
this time when the eyes of the world are fixed upon you as a Church, and
upon me as a witness for God, let us walk carefully. If ever I might ask
your prayers, nay, claim them as my right, it is now, I beseech you who love
God, ask for me my Lord’s upholding grace that his servant may not flinch
nor turn his back in the day of battle. Ask for yourselves the same, that
when the fight shall grow less hot and there shall come an hour of calm and
quiet thought, I, your pastor, and yourselves, my fellow-soldiers in Christ,
may look down the ranks and say, “Not one comrade has fallen; the arrows
flew thick about them, but their armor was complete ; the enemy was fierce,
but the Master gave them strength equal to their day., He hath kept those
whom he gave to us, and not one of them is lost.” May it be yours and mine
on heaven’s starry steeps to look back upon the superlatively glorious grace
which shall have kept us to the end, and brought us to the land where there
shall be no more sin. Let us trust the Savior. There is the sinner s hope ;
there is the saint’s strength, Let us cling to the cross again, and may
Almighty grace keep us there, and so glorify itself for ever. Amen. (Copyright
AGES Software.
Used by permission. All rights reserved. See
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Hosea 2:14: Strange
Dispensations and Matchless Consolations
NO. 2754
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, NOVEMBER 24TH, 1901,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK,
ON A LORD’S-DAY EVENING, IN THE AUTUMN OF 1859.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”—Hosea
2:14
THIS is one of the many instances in the Word of God of his free, rich,
sovereign grace. The Lord has set the children of Israel before us as a
great model. They are our beacons with regard to sin, but they are a pattern
to us when we see in them the gracious dealings of a covenant-keeping God.
Oft did they rebel, but just as often did the Lord forgive them. Frequently
did he smite them with his rod, but he never turned them over to
destruction, he still remembered his covenant made with Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob, and he suffered not his faithfulness to fail.
We have, in. the prophecy of Hosea, an instance of what God thought of the
sins of his people. He commands the prophet to speak in rough earnest
language of their constant rebellion; and yet, no sooner has he directed
Hosea to deal hardly with his erring spouse, than he seems to stop him in
the full career of his furious prophecy, and bids him now address to her
words of comfort. This is the connection in which our text is found set in
the black letters of the volume of threatenings against guilty Israel. This
precious jewel shines all the more brightly in the thick darkness of their
sin and despair, this torch of love and kindness sheds a heavenly light, and
makes their eyes and hearts rejoice.
Let us now turn. to these words of the Lord, and regard them under the
following aspects. First, I see, in the text, the singular reasons for
divine grace: “Therefore, behold!” I see, in the next place, the strange
dispensations of divine grace: “I will bring her into the wilderness.” In
the third place, matchless consolations: “I will speak comfortably unto
her;” and, in the fourth place, sweet, persuasions: “I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.”
I. In the first place, we have, in our text, The Singular Reasons For Divine
Grace: “Therefore, behold!”
It is not without cause that the word “therefore” is here inserted. We are
to look to the context to find what are the premises from which a conclusion
of mercy is drawn. You might naturally conceive, judging according to human
logic, that the preceding verses described either Israel’s goodness, or else
her abject repentance, if she has gone astray and rebelled; but, on the
contrary, there is no mention of these things at all. They speak not of her
goodness, but of her badness; and, in fact, they speak so strongly, that the
prophet uses terms theft are never employed except after excessive iniquity.
He charges Israel with whoredom, and speaks of her as having committed
uncleanness with many lovers. This is strong language, and shows that he
means to declare the excessive, character of her sin; and instead of
speaking of her as being a penitent, he declares that she was still
impenitent. Notwithstanding many, many providences, and the hedging up of
her way with thorns, she would break through, and run after her many false
lovers. And then, strange to say, contrary to all human reasoning, there
comes the inference, it may so call it,—an inference of sunshine from a dark
cloud, an inference of mercy from a whole mass of sin and iniquity. If the
inference had been, “Therefore I will destroy her, I will cut her in
pieces, and give her children to the sword, and her women to be carried away
captive,” our reason could well have seen that it was the natural
consequence, we could easily have seen that the logical terms agreed; but
here it seems as if it were quite a non sequitur. How can it be that a
“therefore” should spring up, when the previous verses have been filled
with a description of her sins?
Here let us pause to remember that the reasons for God’s grace to us are far
above all human reason, for he himself has told us, “As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts.” Nay, I will go further than this, and say that, not
only are God’s modes of reasoning far above our own, but they often seem as
if they were even contradictory to ours. Where we should draw one inference,
God draws the very opposite. See you poor penitent sinner; he “would not
lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven; but he smote upon his breast, and
cried, God be merciful to me a sinner.” What is our inference from this,
looking at the publican as he stands there? Why; that he is a rebellious
creature, and that God cannot and will not accept him, but must punish him.
Doth God draw this inference. Nay; for “this man went down to his house
justified.” See yonder Pharisee; with outstretched hands he stands, and
prays thus with himself, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men
are,” and soon. What is our inference therefrom? Surely God will accept so
good a man as this; he will be sure to justify a man so holy and so moral.
Not so; for that man went down to his house without justification,
unsatisfied, unblessed with the smile of heaven, while you sorrowing
publican received God’s gracious forgiveness. We, ever since the Fall, have
learned to reason badly; our reasoning faculty has been as much confused as
any other power that we possessed; we have turned aside from the
straightforward path, and we know not how to draw the true inference which
God draws from our sins. So, then, it seemeth, from our text, that, so far
from looking at any reason for mercy to anything that is good in man,—if God
ever seeks in the creature a reason why he should show mercy, he looketh not
to the good, but to the evil. When we come before God, it would be well if
we. would always remember this. We are committing great folly if, when we
are spreading our case before him, we dare for one moment to speak of
ourselves as good or excellent. We shall never succeed in that way; he will
not listen to us, for this plan has no power with him; but if, when we come
to him, we can plead our sin and our misery, then shall we prevail Nay, we
may even go the length of the psalmist, David, when he prayed, “For thy
name’s sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity;”—and for a strange reason, you
would say,—”for it is great.” He used the greatness of his sin as an
argument why God should have mercy on him. O ye legalists, who are looking
to yourselves for some arguments with which to prevail with God; O ye who
look to your sacraments, to your outward forms, to your pious deeds and your
almsgivings, for something that will move the heart of God; know this, that
these things are no lever that can ever move him to love. Nothing but your
sin and misery can ever stir his mercy, and you look to the wrong place when
you look to your merits to find a plea why he should show pity upon you.
And yet, albeit that this reasoning seems extremely strange, I may use an
illustration which will justify such reasoning as this in the mind of every
thoughtful man. Here is a poor creature shivering in the cold with
nakedness; and there is one who hath warm garments to give away. Will not
the nakedness of the man be his claim to benevolence? If there be any
generous soul who desireth to feed the hungry, it is not likely that he will
bestow his bread upon one that hath abundance; but if he heareth a soul
uttering the wail which is excited by the pangs of hunger, that very wail
shall make him move his hands to supply the needed food. Generosity,
liberality, and mercy know of nothing that can move them as misery can, and
the very reverse argument is formed from that which men are so fond of
using. They will go to God with a plea analogous to this,—as if a beggar
should meet me in the street, and say, “Sir, give me charity; I am not very
poor, I am not very hungry, therefore give me charity.” He would not use
such a foolish argument as that. He, like a wise man, saith, “I am hungry,
I am starving; therefore give me food.” Would that ye would use the like
sensible argument, when ye come before God, and plead, not for your merit’s
sake, but for your misery’s sake. Think not that you are to tip the arrows
of your prayers with the feathers of your own merit; that shall never make
them fly to heaven. It will be better if ye can wing them with a sense of
your own miseries, for then they shall reach the heart of God, and he will
send you the promised blessing in return. Strange reasoning, you say, this
of grace,—that God will save men, not for their goodness, but, if there be
any reason that can be found in them, it is rather for their sin and for
their misery than for anything good in them.
If you will carefully look at the text again, you will notice that, after
the word “therefore” there comes a word of exclamation: “behold!”
Whenever we see the word “behold” in Scripture, we may be sure that there
is something well worthy of our attention. It strikes me that Hosea, when
the Lord commanded him to write this verse, was quite staggered. “Lord,”
saith he, “how can this be?” He was filled with amazement. “I have been
threatening thy children; thou hast told me to set their iniquities before
their face, and now thou biddest me say, ’Therefore I will have mercy upon
them.’” The conclusion seemed to him so strange, that he was utterly
astonished; and the Lord permitted his servant to record his astonishment by
putting in that word “behold.”
Nor do I think that is the only reason for the use of the word. It is also,
I think, put there that we may admire the grace here displayed, and that we
may remember the mercy of God, and especially the deep-rooted secret reasons
for that mercy. They will continue to be, on earth, the theme of admiration;
and, in heaven itself, the object of eternal astonishment. When we shall be
permitted to see why God had mercy upon man, and especially why, out of the
human race, he had mercy upon us,—why he chose us while others were suffered
to perish,—we shall be compelled incessantly to lift up our hands in
astonishment, and even in the heavenly city itself joy shall sometimes be
superseded by wonder, and we shall, even there, be astonished to find such
matchless grace displayed for such singular reasons. “Therefore, behold!”
Again I would say to those who are trusting in themselves,—Give up your
foolish hopes. Men and brethren, look not to the empty cisterns; but come
away at once, to the fountain, the divine, kingly fount of sovereign grace,
for there, and there only, it is that your hope of pardon can be realized;
for, in yourself, there is nothing but that which would lead to your
destruction, and only in Jehovah can reasons for salvation be discovered.
II. The second point is, The Strange Dispensations Of Divine Grace.
God is about to have mercy upon poor fallen Israel, so what does he say? “I
Will allure her, and baring her into the wilderness.” This may seem to some
a strange way of showing his love, yet it is not an unusual one, for it is
the common method by which God manifests his love towards his chosen ones.
You will, perhaps, smile when I make the observation that there was nothing
which a Roman slave more anxiously desired than to have a box on the ear
from his master. “That was a singular desire,” you will say; yet that box
on the ear was the object of the morning and evening prayer of many a, slave
in Rome; for, you must know, if a master | |